Melting Snow
by UniqueAsterisk
Summary: Things don't quite go as planned when Belle travels to town on the winter solstice. (Contribution to Rumbelle Secret Santa 2015)


**Author Notes: This is my Rumbelle Secret Santa gift for the lovely welivedinacastle on Tumblr. Her prompt was "angst, happy ending, snowed, fireplace" and somehow those few words turned into this. I hope you all enjoy and don't forget to review!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time. It belongs to ABC, as well as Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.**

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 **Melting Snow**

On the day of the winter's solstice, Belle heads to town to purchase food for tomorrow night's feast - a tradition meant to celebrate the return of days that grow longer, while the nights grow shorter - and to see the candles and fairy lights that illuminate the streets and light each traveler's way on the longest night of the year.

It had been threatening to snow all day, but on her way back to the castle the storm finally breaks. The frozen water comes down in sheets, blanketing the Dark Forest and obscuring her path. Walking all the way to town is difficult enough under pleasant conditions, but during a sudden blizzard it's almost impossible.

Unable to go any further, the wet snow soaking through her clothes and the cold wind biting at her skin, Belle collapses.

When Belle doesn't return when she said she would, Rumpelstiltskin is slightly put out. When she doesn't arrive within a half-hour of her estimated time, he begins to worry. When she misses her arrival time by a full hour, he begins to outright panic.

It's moments like this - rare as they are - that he thanks whatever lucky stars he may have that he had the foresight to place a tracking spell on the clasp of her cloak. With one quick spell and a puff of purple smoke, he teleports into the forest, already prepared with a few words of chastisement for his forgetful little maid.

But when he arrives in the woods, snow thundering down around him, he does not find Belle distracted by a particularly beautiful play of light across ice or lost in the white and formless landscape of the forest. No, he finds her frozen to the bone and unmoving, lying unconscious in the snow.

In one quick motion, knowing that time is of the essence if she is to survive - because she _must_ survive - he gathers her into his arms, grabbing her basket off the forest floor as an afterthought, knowing that she'll berate him mercilessly if he leaves it behind after all she went through to fill it.

With another puff of smoke, he's back in the great hall of the Dark Castle. If he's being honest with himself, he's utterly terrified right now. If he listens carefully, he can still feel her heart beating - much fainter than he would like - but she hasn't stirred since he found her. He'll never forgive himself if she dies, and in that moment, looking down at her pale body lying in his arms, he refuses to let her become another name on his ever-growing list of regrets.

He carefully lays her down on the couch by the fire. If she's going to live through this, she needs to get warm quickly. With a flick of his wrist, her wet dress and cloak are replaced by a new, dry dress and a woolen blanket. He kneels down on the floor beside her resting place - the all mighty Dark One brought to his knees by a clever young girl with pretty blue eyes - and he frets over her. Without even realizing it, he ends up holding both of her small pale hands in his, as he listens for her heartbeat to strengthen and watches the color slowly return to her skin.

With help from the heat of the fire and just a little bit of healing magic, Belle eventually begins to wake up. Tired, frightened, and still quite cold, she eventually comes to consciousness. She tells him what happened to her in the forest, explains the cold and the pain and the fear. And he tells her how he found her and how he saved her. She smiles, even calls him her hero, but he doesn't tell her about his own fear, doesn't let those walls fall even for a moment.

She matters to him, more than even he can understand, but he can't tell her that, can't risk letting that kind of weakness into his life.

So instead he stays silent and listens to her, and when he sees her shivering, he makes a hot pot of tea appear with a flick of his wrist. They spend the winter solstice sitting together by the fire - Rumpel attempting to leave an appropriate amount of space between them on the couch - sipping tea and swapping stories. They eat cinnamon cookies and gingerbread, and Belle shares with him the peppermint candy sticks she bought in town.

But when words fail them and they run out of stories they're willing to tell, they both look out the window and watch the snow fall. What was once a blizzard has settled into an almost gentle snowfall, blanketing the paths and gardens of the Dark Castle in beautiful frozen white.

Looking out at the world, Belle thinks about how rough winter in the Dark Castle has been compared to winter in her homeland. Here, it's always freezing cold; the wind howls through every tower; and when it snows, it comes down in sheets for hours. Yet, despite all its hardships, winter in her new home - because she's finally come to think of it as _home_ \- is still beautiful. The peaks of the distant mountains are always crested with snow; every window pane is dusted with intricate frost designs; and delicate icicles hang from her tower windows and glitter in the morning sunlight. She has never known a colder winter, nor a more beautiful one.

As she considers the cold, Rumpelstiltskin considers the heat. Winter in the Dark Castle has always been freezing. For hundreds of years, he's spent the winter solstice alone by the fire, struggling to stay warm. But this year, with Belle by his side, warmth doesn't seem so hard to find. She's brought light back into his life and cheer back into his castle, and he's not quite sure how he lived without her for so long. Winter in the Dark Castle is still cold, but somehow her presence makes it all a little more tolerable.

And as the longest night of the year wears on, Belle inches closer to Rumpelstiltskin as they talk and eventually falls asleep with her head resting against his shoulder. The weight of her sleeping form resting against him calms his mind and he dares not move for fear of disturbing her slumber. For once in all his time as the Dark One, the voices in his head are utterly silent and he feels no need to spin straw to make the whispers stop.

So instead he sits there in comfortable silence and drinks in the sight of her presence and the warmth of the fire, and watches as the snow continues to fall until sunrise.

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 **Author Notes: So, what did you think? Don't forget to let me know! Reviews are, as always, very much appreciated. And Merry Rumbelle Secret Santa Day, everyone. :)**


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